5 posts in this topic

Well after all the talking I figured I'd post a report on the chark/vacation trip we took. It was 5 couples 35 fishing rods that made the trip including my yak. We had a place on the beach so we just fished right there, day one ended up with some whiting kept for bait and me making a fool of myself with the cast net, almost pulled my teeth out. Day two I chased the tide down the beach for 2 hours...(brief beach lesson on Folly, from low to high the water will move up to 400 yards, it is a very shallow rise on this beach, the low tide will hold about 3 hours and the high does the same then it starts eating up beach. We really only had success on the low because on the high even out 300 yards you were in 10 ft of dirty water) after 3 hours of catching doggies and whiting my rod doubles over, my buddy grabs it for me and as I'm yelling no, no, no sets my circle hook with all his might...shark on luckily! Unfortunately on a 15 lb rod, this was the LOW tide and I had a bar to get him over with about 1 ft or water on it so I wasn't very confident. I played the shark for about 15 minutes before I surfed him over the bar on a wave and another 15 minutes in the gut while the crowd formed. In the gut I saw he was hooked in the left pec, the hookset must have yanked the circle out of his mouth but somehow after the drop caught him in the pec. The result was a "HAMMERHEAD" yell from people on the beach. It was a bonnethead shark nearly 5ft in length and 45-50 lbs, biggest the locals there had seen. It was about 15 minutes to get the thing revived after that fight and the fanfare all the while my buddies were hooking up in the shark blitz while I'm chest deep in the gut and they are fighting sharks right next to me. Sharpnose and bonnetheads about 6 landed in 2 hours and about 10 hooked. From what I know the Bonnethead would have been a state record but it was foul hooked and another person touched the rod...oh well would have been nice but I wouldn't have killed it with all those kids watching anyway.

We hooked them consistently until the tide pushed us off our hole. Caught on shrimp, bunker, squid. the guy who caught and landed the most used a double bottom rig with 2 shrimp pieces and size 4 hooks with mono right out of the package!!! Remember we were fishing for whiting so we really weren't prepared with our big rods or steel. Went back out that evening on the low and had great action, if you haven't walked out 150 yards to cast in the dark you haven't lived...a little sketchy. Especially after the baits went out, we had a hookup on a whiting...big deal, bring him in, WHAM, line goes out, half a whiting comes in, cast out remainer and immediate hookup with a drop, cast out one from baitl and hook up and land all within 5 minutes...safe to say charky was feeding heavily and here we are walking through the gut to cast. We had another guy get clipped by a ST and lose his rig. This is what kayaks are for but I wasn't about to yak baits our for 6 rods with only shrimp on them, I'd never stop. Kept a sharpnose to try on the grill for lunch, steaked it with butter and old bay, I was shocked it was really good.

That was it...one day hot and heavy and nary a fish or shark the rest of the trip, I underestimated the ability of our wives to keep us off the beach at night and we had 40 kt blows during the day that wouldn't hold 13 oz, it was fishable but with the people around we wanted out lines in front of us so they knew where we were. We didn't see a porpoise or pelican after day two. I woke up early day 4 after getting skunked on sharks on day 3 fishing identical conditions to day 2 to see the shrimpers about 1/4 mile off the breakers at 5:30...ruined the fishing for the trip. There were spots we could have went but talking about our shark blitz and drinking beer took precedent for some reason.

Thanks for all the help Steve, we could have hooked up every day using your tips on a Stag trip, just not in the cards on this one to leave for 5 hours every day. It was disappointing but everyone caught a shark on spinning gear casting from the surf so that was cool. I've got them all hooked for AI charking now, I'm gonna need more beer and firewood.

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For what it's worth I got crushed in the yak after running baits out one day in front of a crowd of people...humbling! once the nose on that 16ft sucker digs in its over! I tried to surf in though, I didn't have any trouble when I was timing the sets.